Horrible Histories
Horrible Histories In our opinion, the Horrible Histories television programmes contain some of the best comic writing out there and Terry Deary’s original books are masterful. They injected bounce into many a lesson, regardless of the class’ age. They also raise questions on the relationship between comedy and historical tragedy. For an energetic and playful start, pair up pupils and ask them to debate which of two historical periods was more ‘horrible’. If you have the books to hold up as you call out, even better! e.g. Vicious Vikings or Stormin’ Normans? or Angry Aztecs or Terrible Tudors? Using some volunteers, perform the stimulus as a piece of Readers’ Theatre (script in hand). Once read, recap on what each character is saying, and let them discuss the different views in small groups: Janey - We wouldn’t want people joking about today’s tragedies, so it’s not fair to joke about the past, Chris – Maybe some things can be joked about, others not Andy – if enough time passes, anything can become fair game, Morgan – Books like Horrible Histories are there to entertain, and we should leave it at that. To let pupils show their initial thinking on each perspective, summarise the views on a pieces of A3 paper and place one in the middle of the room. Tell pupils that to agree with it, they stand closer, and to disagree, they stand further away. You can briefly hear reasons, but try to move to the next one fairly swiftly, and so on. Do they have any other thoughts on this issue? I’ve deliberately excluded mention of black comedy and gallows humour, in the hope pupils will raise these concepts themselves.
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